Howard County — volleyball mecca

By Andrew Conrad
Posted: November 5, 2008

The scoreboard tells the story at a recent Wilde Lake volleyball match — Howard County teams are tough to beat.

Every year around early November it’s the same scene: Howard County volleyball team faces non-Howard County volleyball team in the early rounds of the playoffs and dominates. Baltimore City, Prince George’s County, Anne Arundel County, Harford County … Howard County teams played representatives of all of them and the results were one-sided.

Glenelg was beating a Baltimore City school so decisively in the first round that coach Don Beall had his team stick around for an impromptu practice afterward. At one point the opponent was having so much trouble dealing with Casey Schmidt’s serve — to be fair, Schmidt’s serve is too hot to handle even for most county schools — that Beall told her to serve one out just to get another player to the line.

In Reservoir’s match against an Anne Arundel County team, things were so one-sided that coach Carole Ferrante had her team practice plays, not afterward but on the court during the match. Only three Gators made it to the line to serve before each game was over, and the team had 29 aces.

A Prince George’s County team scored 30 points total against Hammond, and 11 of them were on Hammond service errors.

What’s my point? It’s certainly not to make fun of anyone. And I’m not saying these schools shouldn’t be playing volleyball. The team that played Glenelg had six uniformed players — not a single substitute. But those six girls got to wear a team uniform, they got to take a bus ride to Western Howard County, and they got to say they were on a team.

My point is that we should be thankful for the quality of volleyball we have here in Howard County. We’ve had 22 state champions and we seem to have a handful of teams make the state tournament every single year. The Columbia Volleyball Club is considered the premier club program in the state.

So next time you see a player serve a ball into the net, a line judge blow a call, or a coach make a questionable decision, try to remember what volleyball is like in other parts of Maryland before you start shouting your fool head off.

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